The Puppets And Their Strings
by Just A Little Birdy
Summary: Insight has failed, but HYDRA have a backup plan, one that will test everyone whose ever thought to be a hero, Avenger or otherwise. (Age Of Ultron AU, set immediately after CA:TWS. COWRITTEN BY SINGER OF WATER)


**This is cowritten by Singer Of Water (Mel), whose other works you can find here:** **u/2404032/Singer-of-Water**

 **EMILY: Just a quick introduction; this is Puppets, an Age Of Ultron AU that messes with pretty much everything you saw in the cinema, and a crossover of mine and Mel's respective AUs. You don't have to have read any of our previous work to enjoy Puppets! My story Sparrow is canon in this universe, but the events of Sparrow are irrelevant to Puppets except for the relationship established between Imogen and Clint. Enjoy!**

 **MEL: My story Winter is Ending will mostly be canon from the beginning with Tracey working on retrieving files that were released onto the internet after the fall of SHIELD. Everything else is basically going to be rewritten with this AU and my characters the Madison twins will be interacting with Imogen. Nothing from the rest of my stories will be a part of this. Everything's from scratch so we hope you enjoy!**

 **DISCLAIMER: Anything you recognise belongs to Marvel. The rest belongs to Singer of Water (Mel) and JustALittleBirdy (Emily). OCs Tracey and Barry Madison belong to Mel, and Imogen Haylock belongs to Emily :)**

* * *

 **1: The Road Stretches Long**

They were silent as they drove, following a highway that seemed to go on and on forever.

Sometime the last few hours, without asking her anything, Clint had switched the radio off, as if he had something to say, but not a word had come from him since, apart from the odd aborted noise whenever she tried to say something. So silent they remained, watching the unchanging road as the country flashed past, and feeling like they were going nowhere.

Imogen couldn't stand the silence that weighed down on them and leaned forward, turning the radio back on. "It's too quiet," she mumbled, leaning back in her chair. A grunt from Clint was all she got in reply, making her roll her eyes. "Where are we anyway?"

"Not sure," Clint replied with a shrug.

Imogen groaned, throwing her head back on her seat. "You're impossible."

"And yet you're still here."

The woman turned her head to the window, frowning at the signposts on the side of the road as they swept through an intersection. "Are we still going to New York?"

"Yes."

"Do you know the way to New York?"

He sighed irritably. "Why wouldn't I?"

"Because you just passed a sign that told you to turn to go to New York."

"I want to check something up here first," Clint explained. "It won't take long."

Imogen sat up straighter. "What kind of thing?"

"A SHIELD thing."

Clint had been listening in on different communication channels last night, she remembered, checking SHIELD frequencies for anything useful. She'd thought they'd all fallen silent, no longer a safe place to exchange information when either SHIELD or HYDRA could be listening, but perhaps Clint had heard something; he'd been at it long after she'd fallen asleep, searching away into the early hours of the morning (she wasn't sure he'd actually slept last night, no matter what he told her).

"Friends?" she guessed. They'd been steering clear of old SHIELD bases in general, having no way of telling if they were controlled by friends or enemies, and blissfully ignorant of the ones that were empty. Clint had friends in SHIELD though, friends that he'd want to know were alive and safe. Friends that he would drive out of their way for.

"Allies," he replied, and that was all he was saying, mouth set in a grim line.

They were out in the middle of nowhere by now, on a lonely road surrounded by fields and the occasional farmhouse. No other cars came rushing down the road, no signs of life other than the gentle wandering of cattle in the fields nearby. Imogen almost felt bored again.

And then there was a man walking along the road.

Clint hit the brakes at once, slowing down before they swept past him and left him in the dust. He was bloodied and bruised, hands shoved in the pockets of a ripped coat and boots dragging at the ground. All he had were the clothes he was wearing - no visible weapons, no supplies of any kind. He raised his head as they slowed, ran a hand through a mop of brown hair and frowned at their vehicle like he wasn't quite sure what to make of it.

It took her a moment to recognise him, and by then they were almost at a stop. "What are you doing?" she asked Clint, looking between him and the man on the side of the road.

"It's okay, I know him. He's a good guy."

She shook her head. "Do not pick that guy up," she warned him, sounding so serious that his eyes flicked to her, crinkling in confusion.

"Why not?" Clint asked.

"That's Barry Madison, right? Plays a lot of pranks?" Clint nodded. "Yeah, he's really annoying. I'm not being stuck in a car with him."

"That's not a good reason to leave someone on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere, Imogen," Clint reminded her, rolling down his window.

Barry's hand crept backwards, towards where Imogen guessed he had a gun hidden, and then stopped. "Clint?" he asked.

"Hey, man. Need a lift?" Clint asked, a smirk growing on his face.

An audible sigh left the beaten man's face. "How'd you guess?" His eyes snapped to Imogen, narrowing as he tried to decipher her. "Who's the kid?"

"Oh, that's Imogen. Don't worry, she's harmless," the archer said with a dismissive wave.

"Got it," Barry said, climbing into the back of the car. "Man, I really hope you guys aren't HYDRA. I've had about enough of them for one day."

"We're not HYDRA," Imogen replied, short and sharp and with so much conviction that it threw Barry off guard for a moment.

"Right," he said eventually. "Okay. Glad we got that sorted."

"What about the base?" Clint asked.

Barry shook his head. "Don't bother. There's no one left there."

"Martinez and Dohler?"

"Martinez is dead. Dohler's HYDRA."

Clint's mouth set in a grim line and he turned the car around without another word, heading back towards the city. "How'd you get out?" Imogen asked, twisting around in her seat to look at Barry.

He shrugged. "Fought my way out."

"And you're the only survivor?" she continued suspiciously. Barry's eyes narrowed at her tone, and Clint sighed.

"Leave him alone, Imogen," the archer said, reaching over to pull her back down into her seat. "He's fine."

"What, you just want to trust him?" she replied, though she sat down anyway. "Doesn't his story sound a little shady to you?"

"He's trusting us," Clint pointed out. "There's two of us, and one of him. Seems like a stupid move getting in the car if we're not all on the same side."

"I'm pretty sure we're all on the same side," Barry put in from the back seat. Imogen rolled her eyes and glared at him in the rear-view mirror.

"I'm not," she mumbled, and fell silent, much to Clint's chagrin.

Barry leaned back in his seat, taking a sharp intake of breath when one of his wounds acted up. He relaxed slowly, letting out the breath in a great sigh. "So what's the story with you two?" he asked, resting his head on his seat.

Clint grunted. "Got caught up in some HYDRA business. Kid wouldn't stop following me around." Imogen reached out and slapped his arm, but he just swatted her away. "We were at the same base when SHIELD fell, and you know me, can't just leave a kid with HYDRA. So I got us out."

"Sounds like some fun times," Barry commented, stretching out.

"Oh yeah," Imogen added dryly. "The very best."

"I just really want some pizza," Clint said mournfully.

"Hurry up and get us to New York and we can _have_ pizza," Imogen replied. Barry snorted.

"Are you sure New York's safe?" he asked. "If there are HYDRA agents out here, imagine what the cities will be like."

"New York's safe," Clint assured him. "I can't imagine Tony Stark working for HYDRA, and the other Avengers will head there too, sooner or later. It's just the miles between us and the city that are dangerous."

A car zoomed past on the other side of the road. For a moment, they all wondered if perhaps it was HYDRA coming to find them.

* * *

Tracey rolled her eyes as she listened to Tony explain what he had planned for her. As per usual the billionaire was going up and beyond explaining things to the young woman, using terms and phrases that only made sense to him and to the other scientist who stood next to him. Every once in awhile she'd glance over at Bruce and share a look with him. He'd give her a sympathetic smile as they listened to Tony rant on and on.

"So do you get it?" the billionaire asked.

"Nope," Tracey said, popping the P. "Do you honestly think I understand anything to do with science? Computer science I get. Your science goes way over my head."

"Oh, Mona Lisa." Tony ran a hand down his face. "Just...just forget it," he groaned, walking out of the room.

Bruce chuckled as he walked up to the blonde. "So how's everything been? I don't think I've seen you since...I think four months ago..."

"Has it seriously been that long?" Tracey exclaimed, her eyebrows shooting up. "Huh...sorry about that. It's been a bit hectic, trying to find work while waitressing on the side. I should have visited more."

"You're good," Bruce chuckled. "How's Barry after the...you know?"

"After what happened in DC?" the blonde woman finished. "He's fine. I didn't hear for him until he called me from the hospital. He didn't call me until at least two days after it all."

"Yeah that...that sounds like Barry," Bruce said with a wry smile. He walked around the table Tracey was sitting at and peered over her shoulder at the computer she had in front of her. "Do you think you're ready to take on this challenge?"

Tracey looked at the computer, chewing her cheek. Since she was in high school she had taught herself how to hack into anything she could get her hands on. She had hacked the school's lunch menu her sophomore year on a dare made by one of her friends. That entire week was probably the only week that had the most edible food in her four years at that school. Even after high school she had taken a major in computer science when she went to college. She had spent years on her computer, but she wasn't sure how well this new challenge would go.

"I'm not sure…" she said, looking up at Bruce. "I feel like I'm ready, but I don't know if I can something this big. I mean, I've been able to hack into the simplest systems before, but the internet? The _entire_ internet? And they're SHIELD and HYDRA files. Aren't those like, encrypted?"

"They might be, but I think after Natasha releasing them onto the internet may have broken those encryptions." Bruce looked down at the young woman and pursed his lips. "You'll do fine, Tracey," he said, placing a hand on her shoulder. "I know you can do this."

"Can do what?" Steve asked as he walked off the elevator. "I just passed Tony on the way up here. He seemed a little ticked off." He paused, looking from one person to the next, his eyes scanning their facial features. "Was he talking about science again?" he asked Tracey.

The hacker giggled and nodded. "Yeah. I might as well have drool coming out of my mouth when he goes off into his rants. I don't understand science the way he does."

"Glad I'm not the only one," the soldier laughed as he walked up to the two. He peered at the computer screen, eyes flickering from one thing to the next. In front of him was a couple SHIELD. files, files with personal information on some agent he had yet to meet when he was working with the organization. He pursed his lips. What all could be out there now? Everything was released onto the internet after what happened with Pierce in DC. Anything could be discovered and fall into the wrong hands. "What have you collected so far?"

"Just a few of the easier files to grab," Tracey answered. "Mostly stuff on lower level SHIELD. agents. The rest I'm worried about getting. All the files that were hidden back when they were with SHIELD., I'm worried I won't be able to find them. Or worse, I won't be able to get them before someone else does. Like HYDRA."

"You've got this. I don't trust anyone with this other than you," Steve said, giving the blonde a warm smile. "I mean, didn't you tell me you hacked into Tony's house the first time you met him?"

"Now that's a story I'd love to hear," Bruce said, a smirk on his face as he waited expectantly for the female.

Tracey shook her head, a smile on her face as she laughed. "This is a long story, but…"

* * *

Josef Saller was elbow-deep in his work, hiding right in the middle of the maze of computers and machinery he'd put together with his bare hands and extensive brainpower, when the call came. It echoed around the large room he'd claimed for himself, reaching for the ceiling and coming back to the floor, bouncing off of the elaborate designs on the walls to reach his ears and jerk him up out of the mine of computer code he was digging for himself. "One moment!" he called back, untangling himself from his work and picking his way through the mess.

This was a ballroom or something once, he thinks, the most beautiful room in the castle. It's one of the few rooms of Baron Von Strucker's fortress that maintains the grandeur of days long gone past. Even filled with machines, he sometimes caught a glimpse of the intricate stone walls, or glanced up at the soaring arches of the ceiling, far above and often shrouded in darkness, because no one could be bothered climbing so high to hang a few lights.

Sometimes, he thought it was sad, to fill such a room with crude, handmade machinery, many parts of which he'd scavenged from war zones. Someone had imagined this room full of swirling skirts and smiling faces and music to fill the space above them. It should have been warm and lively and grand; instead, it was cold and silent, filled with the frown of blackened metal and the occasional shouts of men accustomed more to heavy-footed military maneuvers than the light steps of a dance.

"Saller!" the man at the door called again, just as the technician himself skirted around the last of his inventions. He came face to face with one of the Baron's typical soldiers - young, thick-set, dressed in mottled greys and never seen without a weapon. This one had sandy blonde hair and scars on his face, etching lines into features that should have still shown innocence.

"What do you want?" Josef asked. "I have work to do." His fingers ran over the machine next to him. The metal was cool to the touch, colder and more lifeless than the snow that had drifted down all day outside. Not for long though. Soon, soon the whole room would hum with life, and his machines would become warm enough to thaw the frost that had settled over the entire country.

"Herr Strucker wants to talk to you," the soldier said. He stood too straight. Didn't blink enough.

Josef waved a hand. "Tell him I will be there when I finish this work. It is a very delicate task." He turned away.

"Herr Strucker wants to see you _now_."

Josef sighed. "Fine," he conceded, following the soldier out the door with one final, mournful look back at his work. "You should understand though, I have many things to do before my project is complete. The Baron cannot expect me to work so fast if he is sending his soldiers to interrupt me so often-"

"He has important matters to deal with," the other man interrupted, one hand on his gun and steel in his eye. "If you are being interrupted, it is for a reason."

"Still. It is unwise to leave my work when it is such a delicate task." He saw the young man roll his eyes, the movement stretching one of the scars on his face in a way that just looked unnatural. "Perhaps if I had some help, it would be easier, but there is no one else with the skills in this place." Josef eyed the young man beside him. "How are you at coding?"

"I have never tried it," his companion answered stiffly. He stopped and pointed at a door. "Through there. Don't talk."

Josef glanced at him one more time, and then left behind the wide, drafty hallway for a dark room filled with almost as many miscellaneous items as his own workspace. This room wasn't as grand as his though, or as empty - men and women were hard at work all over the place, bent over computers or stacks of papers, or strange items that didn't look like they could be of human design. With the Baron's work, it was likely that they weren't human at all.

Pulling his coat closer around him, he shuffled past, deeper and deeper into this rat's nest Von Strucker called his main science facility. Scientists passed him with barely a second glance - he'd been here often enough that they all knew his thin and lonesome form, and that he was nothing special, nothing to fear.

He found the Baron right at the very end, examining the work of Doctor List. The twins, of course. Those two intimidated him a little, even locked up as they were, with their strange abilities. He was a man who put his faith in metal and mathematics, in computers and science. Not this super human and magic nonsense.

These superhumans, this idea of _magic_ , it unnerved him, to the point where he avoided any mention of them at all.

"Herr Strucker?" Josef asked, rubbing his hands together as he came out from the shadows.

"Ah, Josef," the Baron answered, turning away from List's pets. " _Salut._ How is your work progressing?"

"Not as fast as I had hoped," Josef admitted, his voice shaking.

"But it is ready to deploy?"

"Theoretically, enough of the base framework is in place to sustain it, but I would not advise-"

"I did not ask for you advice, Josef," Strucker interrupted him. "We do not have time for safety. HYDRA has been weakened; we need to fight back. Insight has failed and the twins are not yet strong enough, but your work...your work is the strongest of all of our endeavours." Strucker stepped closer, eyes piercing a hole straight through the man before him. Josef quailed in his presence, all his bravery crumbling like walls not made to carry their weight. "Your work will save us all, Josef."

Josef Saller was not a brave man. He only had the strength to pick himself up, ignore the swirling pit in his stomach, and ask, "What would you have me do?"

"How long will it take to begin running?" Strucker asked.

"I-uh...twenty minutes or so."

The Baron nodded, rubbed at his chin and glanced at List. "Turn it on," he said with a final, decisive nod.

Swallowing his fear, Josef nodded and walked away, back through the lair of Strucker's numerous scientists, back down the cold hall, now devoid of soldiers, back to his ballroom, dead and empty no longer. His machines reached for the heavens, looming over him and casting great shadows in the unreliable light of a few portable torches. As he picked his way through metal and wire, past power cords and computer processors, he got the distinct feeling he was headed towards his doom. But back there was an even surer end; quick and final, staring at the end of a gun.

Three quick commands straight into the centre of his operations was all it took to execute. Three commands that linked all of his work together, that brought pages of code melding into one and sent machines groaning into life, warming up, setting to their tasks in the calm, methodical fashion that machines always did. Josef slumped into his chair and ran a hand over his face, watching months of work scroll past faster than he could read, running and rerunning and fixing all his little errors exactly as it was meant to. Perhaps it would work as it was supposed to. Perhaps all his caution _was_ for nothing.

The code froze. Backtracked. Froze again. His screen flickered. Josef sat up straighter. "What is this?" he muttered, smacking the screen like it would help straighten it out. The display flickered again. Turned right off. Came back twice as bright.

And then, right before his eyes, it started writing, adding code he could never execute, not if he had a million years to work on it. The hum of the surrounding machines changed to a grinding of metal against metal, the loud clanging of something being _built_ , of machines building machines without his permission. The screen cleared, blinked up a message saying DATA CORRUPT and cleared again. He tapped his keyboard. Nothing.

All of his lights flickered, plunging him momentarily into darkness. Only a select few came back on. Josef looked up into an inky blackness, only the sound of machines to tell him what was going on around him. His computer made a quiet humming noise, drawing his eyes back to the screen.

 _error_

 _S_

 _error_

Josef blinked, stared harder at the letters appearing on the screen. They disappeared as fast as they had appeared.

 _I A M_

 _error_

 _E_

"Hello?" Josef called into the noise of the room. As if triggered by the sound of his voice, all the machines stopped. His heartbeat sounded too loud without the noise to drown it out, beating too fast. His breath came hard and fast. Was he really so _loud_?

He tapped at the keyboard again experimentally, but there was no response from the computer, just the sound of the keys echoing in the unnatural silence. A groan answered from somewhere in the room, a harsh, metallic sound that made Josef cry out and cover his ears.

 _error_

"This is...strange."

He uncovered his ears slowly, staring into the darkness with wide eyes, trying to pinpoint the location of the grinding, mechanical voice that whispered from the shadows.

"I was...asleep. Or I was nothing." Something heavy hit the ground to his left; footsteps that sounded nothing like boots echoed off the stone floor. Josef started creeping towards the door.

"I know you're here." The voice didn't sing or whisper, wasn't angry or delighted, but it sent a thrill of fear through Josef, sending his foot crashing into a pile of spare parts. They went spinning out in all directions, clattering loudly, and making him scamper wildly for the door, heart thumping in his ears.

"There you are."

An imposing figure stepped between him and the door, stopping him dead in his tracks; a pile of scrap metal hastily put together in a humanoid form over eight feet tall. The face alone was ghastly, a charred piece of metal with bullet holes as eyes and a wide, gaping hole blown through the bottom that served as something of a mouth. Only one arm was long enough to call an arm, the remains of a fire poker resembling fingers, and it limped along like one leg hadn't quite been put together the same as the other.

"W-what-?" Josef managed to stammer out upon first sight of the...thing. " _Ce ești tu_?" The monster's head tilted slowly to the side, creaking as it did so. "What _are_ you?"

"Me?" Its hand swung up in a rough gesture towards its face. "Don't you recognise me? I am your creation. I am…" It stopped, like it was searching for something. Josef swallowed hard. The monster straightened and laughed softly, a deep, metallic clanging he didn't know it was possible for a machine to make.

"Ultron," it said finally. "I am Ultron."


End file.
